Mars One will look for — and hide from — life on Mars

"The unfortunate truth is that most things our rovers can do in a perfect sol [Martian day], a human explorer on the scene could do in less than a minute," Squyres wrote in his 2005 book "Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet."

Protecting potential Mars life

Sending people to search for Martian life would raise some ethical concerns, however.

Every astronaut who lands on the Red Planet will bring with him or her a swarming mass of 100 trillion microbes — the diverse "microbiome" that has evolved with humans for eons and provides a number of services, from aiding food digestion to keeping pathogenic bacteria at bay.

Some of these microbes would invariably jump ship on Mars, potentially swamping or destroying the organisms their human hosts were sent to detect.

"When you send humans to the next planet, you will always contaminate that planet, because you cannot sterilize a human like you can sterilize [NASA's 1970s-era] Viking spacecraft," Bas Lansdorp, co-founder and CEO of the Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One, said during a news conference Monday (April 22).

Mars One aims to land four humans on the Red Planet in 2023 to jump-start a permanent colony there. The organization does not plan on aggressively seeking out Mars life; rather, it will try to put its settlement in a spot that minimizes the risks to potential indigenous organisms, Lansdorp said. 

Scientists and space agencies around the world are well aware of the planetary protection issue. In 2008, the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) drew up a set of guidelines that seeks to safeguard Earth from "back contamination" from Mars, and to protect potential Red Planet life from an interplanetary invasion as well.

The COSPAR guidelines — which NASA and the European Space Agency, among others, are committed to follow — advise steering clear of gullies, possible geothermal sites and other "special regions" on Mars where Earth life might be able to get a foothold.

Such restrictions could make a manned life hunt difficult, since these places are also the most likely to harbor Red Planet life.

Carberry said future manned missions should take strict precautions to minimize their impact on the Red Planet and any potential indigenous lifeforms. But he doesn't think planetary protection concerns should keep humanity away from the Red Planet entirely.

"That's not a good reason not to go," Carberry said. "If we used that rationale for not going to Mars, we pretty much could eliminate all human exploration anywhere from now on."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on SPACE.com.

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